The Golden Gate Bridge
The repaired bike outside Sunshine Bikes in Fairfax this morning
Leafy cycleway through the suburbs
I'm not allowed to type what came to mind when I saw these very steep steps but let’s just say it rhymes with a quacking water bird. ...or, as McEnroe would have said if he were a cyclist rather than a tennis player "you cannot be serious". We negotiated them (and some corresponding steps back up) by taking the luggage off the bike and with the help of a group of very helpful ladies
We never did get any power at our AirBnB last night - it was still off when we left this morning. The water in the tap was getting tenuous because the pump from the well wasn't working. As we left I said to the guy that it wasn't the overnight I was expecting- he just shrugged and said "it happens here all of the time", which leads me to question why he wasn't more set up for helping guests through it, given he is taking £135 off them per room. A knock on effect of the power being off was that everything mobile phone related (calls and data) was on its knees, presumably because it was overloaded by people whose wired services were all offline. The shop at the bottom of the road had a generator, thankfully, but even there it was cash only as their internet was down.
I slept outside for part of last night and I could hear quite a bit of wind in the trees. I began to worry about whether they might stop cyclists crossing the bridge.
We made the 20 odd Km to the bike shop in good time, arriving a good hour before they we due to open. I noticed someone going into a side door and realised the maintenance guys were already arriving for work.
To cut a long story short - we had the broken spoke sorted before the bike shop proper had even opened (at 10:00). A very nice bunch of guys.
The onward route to the bridge included a lot of bike path - quite nice. The bridge itself was busy with pedestrians and bikes, including the idiot who wobbled towards us making a video of his crossing using a hand held recorder - I wonder if he will edit out the filthy look I gave him as he wobbled by.
After the bridge it was more bike paths and roads through a park closed to traffic. The last 20km was on a busy section of CA 1, often with no shoulder. There was quite a long tunnel but that did, thankfully, have a broad shoulder for us to ride on.
105km with 1149m of ascent has brought us to Half Moon Bay.
Thumbs up for:
The maintenance guys at Sunshine Bikes, Fairfax
The coffee place over the road from Sunshine Bikes - I needed that coffee
The lovely ladies who helped us with the bike on those steep steps
Thumbs down for:
Our AirBnB host who didn't seem bothered about us struggling without power or internet
Whoever thought it was acceptable to have steep steps on the bike path across the bridge
The design of the hub on the tandem which means you can't pull the whole freehub and cassette off to change driveside spokes without the bulky tools to remove the cassette
Incidentally, the side of the bridge for bikes switches at 15:00 ish - had we been in the late afternoon we wouldn't have needed to use the steps. It is possible that I missed a sign somewhere and approached the wrong side but I don't think so. I followed our Adventure Cycling track, but then they wouldn't know what time we would cross.
Thanks so much for the ongoing contributions to UNICEF.
The page is here if you haven't found it yet:
Those hills behind the golden gate are in Marin County, topped by Mt Tamalpais. The birthplace of mountain biking. A few guys modified old US "clunkers", like utility bikes, hence the 26" wheels. The descent from Mt Tamalpais was called "the repack". They blasted downhill and got vack uo in a pickup. Descents often meant repacking the grease-filled back pedal brake. I thonk three of those guts became millionaires from bike brands. Gary Fisher, with his own brand, another founded Marin, and I forget the other. If you trace back the worldwide resurgence ofpopularity of cycling it isn't British Olympic and world success. It's those riders having a hoot in those hills.
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